■ Forgotten film
Disregarded horror film is ‘Alive’
with social implications and style
A mutant baby goes on a killing spree through the
city in this Cohen piece of pure pop-culture genius
BY RYAN NYBURG
PULSE EDITOR
Horror really is the most subver
sive genre, though this is more by the
nature of the industry than any stylis
tic quirk. Horror films are so often
mindless slaughterfests that nobody
expects anything intelligent or so
phisticated to come out of them. This
probably explains the relatively poor
reception of Larry Cohen’s 1974 film,
"It's Alive!" Nobody suspects a
movie about a mutated killer baby to
have anything interesting to say.
But Cohen is one of those rare tal
ents who can turn the most bizarre or
exploitative raw material into pure
pop-culture genius. A low-budget au
teur, Cohen had an eye for bizarre vi
suals and satirical imagery. He sub
verted the very genres he fed off of,
creating allegories of American be
havior from plots involving mutants,
aliens and gun violence.
"It's Alive!" is Cohen's most dis
turbing work, both explicitly and im
plicitly. It opens with a family on the
wayto the hospital,the mother going
into labor with her second child. Like
any good horrorfilm, everything is
played subtly. You know this is going
to end badly somehow, the only ques
tion is when. Cohen keeps the sus
pense building, keeping everything
light and low-key right up until the
moment a doctor stumbles out of the
delivery room and collapses to the
floor, his face covered in blood.
After that, the plot kicks into high
gear. The family has given birth to a
small yellow freak that seems able to
survive on its own only minutes after
being born. It goes on a killing spree
across the city, the LAPD in pursuit.
Meanwhile the family breaks down
underthe pressure from the press
and the community. The mother, un
derstandably disturbed by the event,
begins to lose touch with reality. The
father is quietly fired from his PR job.
He survives by disconnecting him
self from the infant, claiming it is no
relation of his.
The implications of this are power
ful. Much like David Cronenberg's
"The Brood," this is horror focused
on the social unit of the family. The
film depicts a monster that comes out
of a family, as opposed to being cre
ated by larger societal forces. Along
the way it also takes jabs at pharma
ceutical companies, the press and
the medical establishment. In fact,
though most of the film is told from
the perspective of the father, the
most sympathetic character in the
film ends up being the mutant baby,
which at least has an excuse for its
depraved behavior.
Stylistically, the film is a grainy,
poorly lit wonder. Its rawness adds a
visceral quality to everything. The
special effects are minimal, with the
monster baby hardly ever making an
on-screen appearance. This works in
the film's favor because glimpsing the
creature is so much more effective
than having some rubber puppet
jump out of the bushes.
The film's Los Angeles River con
clusion is spooky and disturbing in a
way most horror films only dream
of. The final line leaves everything
with that sense of existential apoca
lypse 1970s horror films were so good
at inspiring.
Films such as this are tough to get
away with these days. One would al
most thinkthat studios comb their
horror film scripts for original ideas
and remove them without haste.
Most low budget films end up in the
lowest common denominator utopia
of direct-to-video land. That Cohen
is still selling screenplays (he wrote
FILM, page 11
■ Film review
Pleasantly predictable
film gets lost in travels
through magic scenery
Undeveloped characters in the Himalayas tell the
cliche story of "the grass is greener on the other side"
BY RYAN NYBURG
PULSE EDITOR
"Travellers and Magicians" is
the first movie filmed in the Hi
malayan nation/kingdom of Bhutan
and acts as an excellent travelogue
of the country. Also, there is a story
involved, though this sometimes
gets lost in the self-consciously
beautiful scenery.
The film tells the story of a gov
ernment official in an obscure vil
lage. He spends his time bored out
his mind and dreaming of moving to
America. Finally he gets his chance
and takes off. However, he misses
his bus and must hitchhike across
the winding roads, accompanied by
fellow travelers. One of these is a
Buddhist monk, who tells the story
of a young man who falls in love
with a older man's young wife. The
monk's tale sits alongside the gov
ernment official's travels, comment
ing on it through the juxtaposition.
All of this is shot in pleasant mut
ed tones and plays out like a chil
dren's tale. In fact, the whole thing
feels more like it was meantfor chil
dren, though it does deal with some
adult themes. The characters rarely
rise above caricature and can be
summed up using nothing more
than their titles: "The Drunk," "The
Jealous Younger Brother," "The
Wayward Youth," etc.
So while the film is easy on the
eyes, it is also easy on the brain.
The film spends more time laboring
to make its point than it does devel
oping its characters, causing the
whole thing to come off as nothing
more than a simple morality tale.
And the point essentially boils down
to "the grass is always greener on
the other side," while also coming
off as an argument against ambition
and for the status quo.
This is all pastoral and pleasant,
but why bother? It's all very much in
line with the Buddhist philosophy
yet is hardly engaging on a theolog
ical level. While simplicity is often a
virtue and the plot's slow unraveling
is a nice change of pace, nothing of
TRAVELLERS, page 11
WOW HULL
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